WORKING PAPER #76

Not at the Cost of China:

New Evidence Regarding US Proposals
to Nehru for Joining the United Nations
Security Council
By Anton Harder, March 2015
 THE COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT
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#76 Anton Harder, Not at the Cost of China: New Evidence Regarding US Proposals to Nehru for Joining
the United Nations Security Council

Special Working Papers Series

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 Not at the Cost of China:
New Evidence Regarding US Proposals to Nehru for Joining the United Nations Security
Council

Anton Harder
Introduction
The issue of Indias right to a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is a
controversial one in India today, but it is not new. The historical controversy has centered on the
culpability of independent Indias first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in not seizing several
alleged opportunities for India to join the United Nations Security Council as a permanent
member in the 1950s. Nehrus critics, then and now, accuse him of sacrificing Indias national
interest on dubious grounds of international morality. The question, however, goes beyond
Nehrus reputation, as it provides rare insights into Indias relations with the United States and
the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) at the beginning of the Cold War.
A peculiar atmosphere of rumor surrounds Indias history as a possible permanent
member of the Security Council. An online search will lead one to heated debates on the
existence, or not, of an early offer to India of a permanent seat on that august body. In 2005,
This Day That Age, a column in The Hindu, featured a reprint of a 1955 story on Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehrus denial in Parliament of the rumors of a recent offer of a UN
Security Council seat by the Soviet Union, showing both the interest in the topic in 1955 and
2005. 1 Despite Nehrus denial then, and online debates now, the 1955 offer from the Soviets is in
fact well-documented, although perhaps not widely known. The angst over these rumors merges
history and contemporary politics, with those arguing that such offers existed, and were refused,
keen to ram what they consider to be another nail into the coffin of Jawaharlal Nehrus
reputation, Indias sometime socialist and avowedly secular first Prime Minister, who it is
argued, in his idealism, failed to secure Indias national interest. 2

1
This Day That Age, The Hindu, September 28, 2005,
http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/28/stories/2005092800270900.htm
2
AG Noorani, The Nehruvian Approach, review of Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, second series, vol. 29,
edited by H. Y. Sharada Prasad and A. K. Damodaran, Frontline 19, no. 2 (January-February 2002),
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1902/19020810.htm. Noorani refers to the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivars
attack on Nehru for failing to secure Indias national interest

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 Anton Harder
CWIHP Working Paper #76, March 2015

That the 1955 incident was publicly discussed in 2002 in print by AG Noorani, a major
scholar of modern Indian history and politics, has not ended the rumor-mongering. 3 However,
new evidence of an even earlier offerby the US in August 1950to assist India in assuming a
permanent seat at the UN Security Council has recently emerged, adding substantially to what
Noorani earlier wrote. Nehrus rejection of the US offer underlined the consistency of his
conviction that the PRCs legitimate interests must be acknowledged in order to reduce
international tensions. Integrating the PRC into the international community by conceding its
right to the Chinese seat at the Security Council was in fact a central pillar of Nehrus foreign
policy. Nehrus skepticism about accepting this offer, and thereby disrupting the dynamics of the
UN, revealed the reverence he had for the international organization, despite its flaws.
Furthermore, his principled rejection of the USs suggestion indicates Indian agency in its
difficult relations with the US at this time. Finally, Nehrus sense that India deserved recognition
as a great country was made plain, although this was qualified by his refusal to compromise core
principles to gain such recognition. That the US made such an approach to India also suggests
that the traditional emphasis on the USs early attempt to pursue an even-handed approach to the
subcontinents major powers and defer to the UKs greater experience in the region ought to be
reconsidered. Furthermore, this episode enriches our understanding of the US governments
internal wrangling over how to bend the UN to its interests in this early stage of the Cold War.
The documents critical to answering these questions are stowed away in the Vijaya
Lakshmi Pandit papers held at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi,
India. The importance of Pandits papers lies in her relationship to her brother, the Indian Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and her high-profile diplomatic posts in the 1940s and 1950s, which
included the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Nations. Furthermore, while the
published Nehru papers contained in his voluminous Selected Works and Letters to Chief
Ministers are a rich and under-utilized resource for studying the Nehru period, unfortunately they
are still only a partial record and they cannot be supplemented by reference to his papers at the
NMML, which are restricted. The status of Nehrus personal collections amplifies the
significance of the Pandit papers for understanding Nehrus thinking on foreign affairs in the
1940s and 1950s. The Pandit papers have of course been used before for general histories of

3
Noorani, The Nehruvian Approach.

2
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Not at the Cost of China
CWIHP Working Paper #76

independent India and broad examinations of Indian foreign policy, but they have not been
deployed thus far in studies focused on Indias relationship with China.4

The 1955 Soviet Offer

In 2002, AG Noorani wrote a defense of Nehrus decision to reject Soviet Premier
Nikolai Bulganins offer of a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in 1955. He
wrote Nehru was right to do so, as really the offer was just a feeler to test India. Noorani was
reviewing the new, and then most recent, volume of the second series of the Selected Works of
Jawaharlal Nehru. 5 He was also taking aim at those political figures who had attacked Nehrus
decision to reject this offer based on a reference in the well-known Sarvepalli Gopal biography
of Nehru (1979) in which Gopal wrote: He [Jawaharlal Nehru] rejected the Soviet offer to
propose India as the sixth permanent member of the Security Council and insisted that priority be
given to Chinas admission to the United Nations. 6 Utilizing the new evidence available in the
Selected Works, Noorani argued that Nehru was correct in making little of this offer, as the offer
was in fact unlikely to materialize in reality; and even if the Soviets were sincere about
facilitating Indias accession to the Security Council as a permanent member, this would have
caused major problems for Indias overall foreign policy strategy by complicating its relations
with China and the major powers. Noorani quoted the following exchange offered in the Selected
Works to bolster his claims:
[Nikolai] Bulganin: Regarding your suggestion about the four power conference
we would take appropriate action. While we are discussing the general
international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage
Indias inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council.

JN [Jawaharlal Nehru]: Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have
suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to
create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it.
Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions
because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject
to controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council, it raises the
question of the revision of the Charter of the UN. We feel that this should not be
done till the question of Chinas admission and possibly of others is first solved. I
4
One problem remains: the NMML allows only a quarter of any file to be photocopied, so researchers must tran-
scribe many documents they wish to obtain in full.
5
Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, second series, vol. 29 (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund 2001).
6
Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 2 (London: Cape, 1979), 248

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 Anton Harder
CWIHP Working Paper #76, March 2015

feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted. What is

Bulganins opinion about the revision of the Charter? In our opinion this does not
seem to be an appropriate time for it.

Bulganin: We proposed the question of Indias membership of the Security

Council to get your views, but agree that this is not the time for it and it will have
to wait for the right moment later on. We also agree that things should be taken
one by one. 7

Noorani suggested that Bulganins response to Nehrus reservations indicated that the offer
was not a real one, but more a means of sounding out Indias views, as Bulganin agreed with
Nehru that the time was not right for pushing a new permanent member into the Security
Council. Furthermore, the exchange shows that India had already rejected a similar suggestion
made by the US. Nehru ascribed the American offer to its desire to disturb Sino-Indian relations.
The status of the Peoples Republic of China in the UN, Nehru argued, should take priority,
before any consideration be given to the necessary revision of the UN Charter required for the
admittance of any new permanent members. What exactly Nehru meant in terms of others
whose admission possibly also should be settled prior to India is unclear, but he probably had in
mind the newly independent nations not yet admitted as members of the UN.
Noorani subsequently wrote about a note penned by Nehru while still touring the USSR
in June 1955, which provided more detail on the earlier offer from the US:
Informally, suggestions have been made by the United States that China should be
taken into the United Nations but not in the Security Council and that India should
take her place in the Security Council. We cannot of course accept this as it means
falling out with China and it would be very unfair for a great country like China
not to be in the Security Council. We have, therefore, made it clear to those who
suggested this that we cannot agree to this suggestion. We have even gone a little
further and said that India is not anxious to enter the Security Council at this
stage, even though as a great country she ought to be there. The first step to be
taken is for China to take her rightful place and then the question of India might
be considered separately. 8

Noorani drew attention to the fact that volume 29 of the Selected Works not only clarified
the nature of the Soviet offer of 1955, but unearthed tantalizing evidence of a previously

7
Noorani, The Nehruvian Approach; the quote comes from Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, second series,
vol. 29, 231
8
See Noorani, The Nehruvian Approach; the quote comes from Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, second
series, vol. 29, 303.

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Not at the Cost of China
CWIHP Working Paper #76

little known earlier offer by the Americans to similarly assist India assume a permanent
seat at the UNSC.

The 1950 American Offer

What was the context of the US offer for India to join the UN Security Council? Nehrus
reference to the USAs offer is frustratingly vague with no hint of the circumstances or timing in
which it was made. However, research done in the correspondence of Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi
Pandit, Nehrus sister, and holder of various major diplomatic positions in the late 1940s and
early 1950s, illuminates the subject. In late August 1950, Pandit wrote to her brother from
Washington, DC, where she was then posted as Indias Ambassador to the United States:
One matter that is being cooked up in the State Department should be known to
you. This is the unseating of China as a Permanent Member in the Security
Council and of India being put in her place. I have just seen Reuters report of
your answer to the same question. Last week I had interviews with [John Foster]
Dulles and [Philip] Jessup, reports of which I have sent to Bajpai. Both brought
up this question and Dulles seemed particularly anxious that a move in this
direction should be started. Last night I heard from Marquis Childs, an influential
columnist of Washington, that Dulles has asked him on behalf of the State
Department to build up public opinion along these lines. I told him our attitude
and advised him to go slow in the matter as it would not be received with any
warmth in India. 9

Nehrus response within the week was unequivocal:

In your letter you mention that the State Department is trying to unseat China as a
Permanent Member of the Security Council and to put India in her place. So far as
we are concerned, we are not going to countenance it. That would be bad from
every point of view. It would be a clear affront to China and it would mean some
kind of a break between us and China. I suppose the state department would not
like that, but we have no intention of following that course. We shall go on
pressing for Chinas admission in the UN and the Security Council. I suppose that
a crisis will come during the next sessions of the General Assembly of the UN on
this issue. The peoples government of China is sending a full delegation there. If
they fail to get in there will be trouble which might even result in the USSR and
some other countries finally quitting the UN. That may please the State
Department, but it would mean the end of the UN as we have known it. That
would also mean a further drift towards war.

9
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 24 August 1950, in Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit Papers 1st Installment
(Pandit I), Subject File No. 59, Subject: 1949-51, Letters to Jawaharlal Nehru from VL Pandit sent during her tenure
as Indian Ambassador to the United States of America, 132, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi
(NMML).

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 Anton Harder
CWIHP Working Paper #76, March 2015

India because of many factors, is certainly entitled to a permanent seat in the

security council. But we are not going in at the cost of China. 10

The context for this discreet move by the US State Department towards India needs to be
emphasized. The tensions of the Cold War were spreading to East Asia, while Europe appeared
to be in deadlock. Specifically, the emergence of an apparently communist government in
control of China had created a new fault-line. The other mega-state of Asia, democratic India,
was burnishing its independence from the democratic camp by refusing to acknowledge this
fault-line and had gone as far as transferring its diplomatic recognition of China from the
defeated nationalists on Taiwan to the unknown revolutionary guerrillas in Beijing. In mid-
January 1950, the USSR had walked out of the UN in protest of the Peoples Republic of China
being blocked from taking the Chinese seat at the UN. Therefore, when the Korean crisis
exploded on 25 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council, unimpeded by the threat of a
Soviet veto, passed a US sponsored resolution to condemn the aggression. India willingly
supported this resolution, as it naturally opposed North Koreas decision to use force to unify the
peninsula.
US leaders would have been pleased that India, having so often talked about the value of
non-alignment, was in fact lining up with Washington to thwart communist aggression. For the
Americans there was also other evidence that Nehru was starting to take a more reasonable
approach towards communism. The State Department had watched with approval the Indian
Prime Ministers June 1950 tour of Southeast Asia and concluded:
Nehrus statements are to be interpreted as an extension into the international field
of his domestic campaign against Communist tactics. If Communism does not
change its tactics in South and South-east Asia he may continue to take the
offensive against it, not only in India but elsewhere. In speaking so frankly Nehru
served our interests admirably. Following Nehrus visit to Indonesia our
representatives were informed that Indonesia had no intention of recognizing Viet
Minh or of convoking an Asian conference on Indonesia. 11

10
Jawaharlal Nehru to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 30 August, 1950, in Pandit I, Subject File No. 60, Subject: 1949,
1950-51, Letters received by V.L. Pandit as Ambassador to Washington from Jawaharlal Nehru concerning Indias
relations with US, Pakistan and other countries and developments at home, 137, NMML
11
Memorandum by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs
(Hare) to the Secretary of State, 3July 1950, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Volume V, The Near
East, South Asia, and Africa (Washington, DC: United Stastes Government Printing Office, 1978), 1466

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Not at the Cost of China
CWIHP Working Paper #76

However, this was only a temporary convergence of interests between India and the
United States. The second US-sponsored resolution at the Security Council, which proposed to
offer whatever help was necessary to South Korea to resist the north, was backed only very
reluctantly by India, and under great pressure from the UK. Soon after, on 7 July, India refused
to vote in favor of a third resolution which gave US full command over UN forces in Korea. 12
Indias commitment to Americas prized theory of international collective security was therefore
thrown into doubt.
Thereafter, the differences between the US and India developed even further, as is
revealed by the correspondence between Pandit and Nehru. Another letter from Pandit, dated 29
June 1950, captured competing Indian and American concerns at this time. She had told the
Americans that the Korean conflict should not have been linked up with other Asian issues such
as Taiwan, Indochina, and the Philippines, and that this widening of the issue made it difficult
for Asian governments to support the US. Meanwhile, she noted that the US President regretted
that India was holding aloof from the democratic nations and still desired to preserve an
independent and neutral foreign policy. 13 July saw further divergence between India and the
US, as Indian diplomacy focused on persuading all parties that international tensions could best
be diffusedand the Korean crisis localizedif the PRC were to take the Chinese seat in the
UN. Indeed, Indias Ambassador in Beijing optimistically briefed Zhou Enlai that they believed
the UK and Egypt would support the PRCs assumption of Chinas Security Council seat, giving
it majority support. India only needed Beijing and Moscows support for this attempt to solve the
problem of Korea by pushing for Beijings admission to the UN. 14 Furthermore, US belligerence
unnerved the Indians, as can be seen from Pandits letter to Nehru on 13 July 1950, in which she
complained about US Secretary of State Dean Achesons references to possible use of the atom
bomb. 15 Nehrus conviction that the best solution was to have the PRC enter the UN would only
have been strengthened by Pandits communication in late July with rogue elements of the

12
Robert Barnes, Branding an Aggressor: The Commonwealth, the United Nations and Chinese intervention in the
Korean War, November 1950-January 1951, Journal of Strategic Studies 33, no. 2 (2010): 235; See also, 16th
October, 1950, in Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, 1947-1964, vol. 2, ed. G. Parthasarathi (Delhi:
Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1986), 227, footnote 8
13
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 29 June, 1950, in Pandit I, Subject File 59, 109, NMML
14
Record of Conversation with Indian Ambassador Panikkar of Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice-Minister Zhang
Hanfu about the Korean Problem and the Problem of Restoring Chinas Seat at the United Nations, 1 July 1950,
Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China 105-00009-01(1), 1.
15
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 13 July, 1950, in Pandit I, Subject file 59, 112, NMML

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Chinese Nationalist movement who, having severed links with Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek),
wanted to help India achieve PRC entry to the UN as a way of containing the Korean conflict. 16
Meanwhile, Acheson made it clear to Pandit that though he appreciated the moral tone which
India brought to the UNs resolutions, his policy was constrained, he pleaded, by US public
opinion. 17 Then, on 1 August the USSR returned to its seat in the UN, ending the US advantage
in the Security Council. 18
So it was in the context of Washingtons continuing regard for Indias moral stature, and
despite the still-born hopes for Indian diplomatic support and anti-communist solidarity (and also
the Soviet return to the Security Council), that Pandit was approached by the State Department
about the UNSC. While she did not say when the conversations with Dulles and Jessop took
place, we can infer that it was sometime in early or mid-August, as she wrote to Nehru on 24
August. This approach to India by the US State Department, though informal and not quite at the
highest level, should nevertheless be regarded as quite sincere. Mrs. Pandit was well respected in
the US and with good reason was seen as a reliable channel to her brother. Even if, as with the
Soviet offer a few years later, the prospects of this offer actually coming to fruition were
unlikely, it could still be seen as a significant display of a desire in the US for a more trusting
relationship with India. India had backed the US resolutions at the UN calling for collective
action to thwart North Koreas aggression. This support had, to some extent, restored hope in the
US that India would align with it in the emerging Cold War, despite Indian insistence earlier in
1950 that it would recognize the new communist government of China, which the US
government could not bring itself to do.
The US was undoubtedly disappointed that Indias initial support for it at the UN
diminished over time, and that Washington and Delhis prescriptions for resolving the Korean
crisis had diverged so much. However, Dulles August 1950 dmarche suggests at this point that
at least the US State Department still saw the potential for closer Indo-US relations and
genuinely desired to demonstrate this with a gesture, and perhaps draw India more closely to it.

16
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 27 July, 1950, in Pandit I, Subject file 59, 122, NMML
17
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 20 July, 1950, in Pandit I, Subject file 59, 122, NMML
18
William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 59.
On 4 August 1950, the USSRs newly returned representative at the Security Council Jacob Malik sought to turn
debate there from the Korean War to the subject of the PRCs representation at the UN; he also attacked the USs
bombing of North Korea

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Andrew Rotters argument that US-Indian relations in the early Cold War era lacked a culturally
sensitive gesture of goodwill from America to India is therefore challenged by this episode. 19
However, the exchange between brother and sister Nehru showed that this gesture was not well
received in India, leaving one to wonder what sort of gesture might have been more successful.
Besides demonstrating a continuing hope that India could yet be prevailed upon to more firmly
link hands with the US-led camp in the Cold War, this initiative also challenges the assumption
that the US was committed to a strategy of equidistance from Pakistan and India as suggested by
some. 20 Clearly, Pakistan would have felt somewhat alienated from the US if it had found out
that Washington was assisting Indias assumption of a permanent seat at the Security Council,
giving it significant advantages in the Kashmir issue.
This communication between Pandit and Nehru also sharpens what we know about US
thinking regarding the UN in the aftermath of that bodys decision to intervene in the reignited
Korean civil war. The early action at the UN to counter North Koreas military move into the
South, including the two resolutions of 25 and 27 June 1950, were regarded by the US and others
at the UN as a positive example of collective action to thwart communist aggression. 21
However, although India had voted with the US on these resolutions, appearing therefore to
choose sides in the Cold War, it had then continued to follow its policy of supporting the PRCs
right to the Chinese seat at the UN. Then, in August, the Soviets returned to the UN, ending the
USs advantage there. In the months prior to and following this approach to India, there were
various discussions occurring within the US about how the UN could best serve US interests, in
particular regarding the subject of Chinas seat at the UN Security Council and in the UN more
generally. 22 The idea was certainly being proposed by some that the US move to have the
Chinese Nationalists excluded but still keep the Communists from taking the vacant seat. 23 The

19
Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947-1964 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2000), 249-280.
20
In particular, on the topic of US policy to South Asia in the early Cold War, see H.W. Brands, The Cold Peace:
India and the United States (Boston: Twayne, 1999).
21
Stueck, The Korean War, 12, 56, 368
22
Various opinions were expressed in official circles in the US as to whether the UN might be reorganized to better
serve the US. For instance former President Hoover advocated a new UN organized without any Communist
national representation. See in Draft Statement for Possible Use by President Truman, 3 May 1950, in Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1950, Volume II, The United Nations; the Western Hemisphere (Washington, DC:
United States Government Printing Office, 1976), 8-9.
23
FRUS 1950, Vol. II. The idea that Chinas UN General Assembly seat should be allowed to be vacant was put
forward in several discussions in September in preparation for the forthcoming session, for example see, Minutes of

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Pandit-Nehru exchange of late August suggests how far these sorts of discussions had gone.
Rather than reorganize the UN entirely, Indian admission to the UNSC might make it a body
more amenable to US interests. Alternatively, the US could have been trying to trade support for
India joining the UNSC with an end to Indias policy of proposing the PRCs rights in the UN.
However the move is to be interpretedand more evidence of specific US discussions on this
topic is neededit certainly adds to an overall picture of the US wrestling with the challenges of
maintaining and extending the UNs ability to serve its interests as it had in the immediate
response to North Koreas attack on the South. Hence, the approach to India could be seen as
part of on-going diplomacy at the UN to mold that organization to US interests of which the
September Uniting for Peace resolution proposed at the General Assembly also formed a
part. 24

Nehrus Rejection of the US Offer

Nehrus determined rejection of the US plan to place India in Chinas seat at the UN
Security Council reflected the particular reverence and centrality placed on the UN by what one
might call a Nehruvian foreign policy. The UN was important to Nehru because he regarded it
as the venue for the resolution of international conflict on the basis of sustained dialogue and

Briefing Session of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly, Washington, Department of State, 7
September 1950, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Volume II, The United Nations; the Western
Hemisphere, 273. However, official position was maintained that Chinese Nationalist representation at the Security
Council must be continued for the indispensable voting support this gave the US. See, Minutes of the First Meeting
of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly, New York, 18 September 1950, in Foreign Relations of
the United States, 1950, Volume II, The United Nations; the Western Hemisphere, 294.
24
Position Paper Prepared in the Department of State, 1 September 1950, in Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1950, Volume II, The United Nations; the Western Hemisphere, 327. The position paper read, The
forthcoming General Assembly session will open at a critical moment in the history of the United Nations. Through
the accident of Soviet absence from the Security Council, and with an impetus stemming principally from the United
States, the Organization, with the unanimous support of the free world, has faced up to aggression in a manner
hardly believed possible by its strongest supporters. In September, for the first time since hostilities began in Korea,
the entire membership of the United Nations will meet to consider its future policy. The Assembly may seize the
opportunity to capitalize on recent developments by strengthening the United Nations capacity and reaffirming its
determination to cope with aggression; or it may sink from this task and lose a unique chance to consolidate its
newly found strength. As it was at the outset of the Korean affair, the attitude of the United States can be decisive.
So we can see here the US starting to consider other ways to maintain its advantage at the UN, by September turning
to the UN General Assembly as more malleable forum than the UN Security Council with a returned Soviet
delegate.

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attempts at internationalism; to keep this effort up was to forestall war. 25 So the sound
development of the UN was an essential component to his foreign policy emphasis on dialogue
and inclusiveness. 26 One need not go as far as Mithi Mukherjee to accept that the UN was
viewed as critical by Indian policy-makers in the 1950s. 27
Nehrus argument for rejecting the State Departments plan was strongly influenced by
his concern that it would undermine the integrity of the UN to the extent it would cease to exist
as we have known it and marking therefore a further drift towards war. 28 Nehru had strong
hopes that the UN would prove to be a body that would, through dialogue, provide a forum for
peaceful resolution of conflict and mitigate the growing tensions of the world. One cannot
underestimate how imminent Nehru and others felt a conflict of at least an equal degree to the
Second World War was. He also valued the UN as an arena to condemn and even constrain
immoral action by states, and this hope had in fact been partly realized through Indian action
over nascent apartheid legislation concerning citizens of Indian origin in South Africa. 29 What is
interesting is that Nehrus hopes for the UN had not suffered overly at this stage, despite Indian
frustration of seeing what was considered Indias just cause over Kashmir being obstructed by
US and UK meddling in the UN. 30 Pandit had even wondered in 1949 if Kashmir would be the
price of a seat in the Security Council. 31

25
However difficult the path, it has to be pursued by repeated attempts at co-operation on the part of all nations.
Once that attempt is given up, the consequence can only be a preparation for conflict on a world-wide scale and
ultimately, the conflict itself. See A Problem for the United Nations, Message broadcast by the United Nations
Radio network from Lake Success, New York, 5 May 1950, in Jawaharlal Nehrus Speeches, vol. 2 (Delhi: The
Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India), 130.
26
For an impressive explanation of Nehrus faith in diplomacy, and particularly his and Indias own diplomatic
skills, see, Andrew Bingham Kennedy, The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru: National Efficacy Beliefs
and the Making of Foreign Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
27
Mithi Mukherjee, A World of Illusion: The Legacy of Empire in Indias Foreign Relations, 1947-1962, The
International History Review 32, no 2 (2010): 253-271. Mukherjee argues that the leaders of Independent India
transferred the pre-Gandhi era Congress loyalty to the imperial metropolis to the UN as the ultimate source of justice
in international affairs.
28
See note 9 above
29
Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). Mazowers history of the UNs origins includes a focus on how
Nehru challenged and destroyed the imperial internationalism of Jan Smuts between 1946 and 1950, though he
failed to prevent the development of apartheid in South Africa
30
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 2 September, 1949, in Pandit I, Subject File No. 59, 47, NMML.
Pandit complained to Nehru of an attempt by the US to put India on a par with Pakistan at the UN over Kashmir.
For Nehrus early frustration with the US and UK for their backing of Pakistan at the UN over Kashmir see,
Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the Worlds Largest Democracy (London: Macmillan,
2007), 72; Stueck, The Korean War, 81; Benjamin Zachariah, Nehru (London: Routledge, 2004), 180
31
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 2 September, 1949, in Pandit I, Subject File No. 59, 47, NMML.

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The crucial role Nehru believed the UN could play in international affairs meant he was
loath to destabilize this venue with moves which would fundamentally change its charter, as
would be necessary for India to take Chinas seat. He pointed out to his sister that the
forthcoming General Assembly session, to begin in September 1950, could well see a final crisis
at the UN with divisions over China splintering the organization beyond repair and leading to an
ever increased risk of war. He would do nothing to exacerbate those dangers. 32
To Nehrus mind the sound development of the UN required that it was truly
representative of the worlds nation states. Hence it was logical that Chinese representation was
held by the PRC and this was a key component of Nehrus UN policy. 33 This was, however, part
of a wider priority placed on China by Nehru. Nehru did not want India to come into conflict
with China, and felt Chinas international socialization and integration would help prevent any
turmoil. Nehru believed that international divisions could be solved not by drawing up armed
camps to guarantee the balance of power, but rather by displays of trust that brought everyone
into the international community and reduced the prevailing sense of paranoia. The West had
erred, according to Nehru, by encircling the Soviet Union in its early history to the detriment of
that states sense of security, and in many ways had created the bipolar confrontation. 34 This
Nehruvian reading of history drove the Indian Prime Minister to seek accommodation with
China on behalf of India and the world.
That Nehru so adamantly made clear that India did not want to replace China in the UN
Security Council, and furthermore, that the issue of Chinas representation in the UN must take
priority over any possible consideration of India gaining a permanent seat in that body underlines
the centrality of China to Nehrus foreign policy. If there was an identifiable core to Nehrus
foreign policy it was that China, whether it was communist or not, was going to be central to the
post-war international world. This was a fact that could not be ignored whether one welcomed it
or not because it was an aspect of the general resurgence of Asia that Nehru welcomed and
hoped to spur forward. Any attempt to confine China, simply because of its allegiance to any

32
14th September, 1950, in Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, 1947-1964, vol. 2, ed. G. Parthasarathi
(Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1986), 194. Nehru reiterated that the most important issue at the UN was
that the PRC take Chinas seat
33
14th September, 1950, in Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, 1947-1964, vol. 2, ed. G. Parthasarathi
(Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1986), 194
34
See Brands, The Cold Peace, 51, 63, on Nehrus assessment that world must avoid making same mistake of
isolating China as West did in early history of Soviet Union

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particular political ideology, was misguided and bound to incite resistance and lead to
international instability.
Nehrus position was clear even before the PRC was founded. In July 1949, he had
written to Pandit in Washington instructing her to decline an invitation to join a Pacific Pact
with anti-Communists in Asia: As a realist, one has to recognize that Communists control the
greater part of China and may, before long, control the whole of that country. In broader interest
of international peace, it is not desirable that we should do anything that would make cultivation
of normal friendly relations with the new China difficult, if not impossible. 35 In August 1950,
India had only recently recognized the PRC and was very anxious to improve relations. Nehrus
whole foreign policy was based on demonstrating to the world that China could be an
international partner and thus reduce Cold War tensions, just as Nehru argued that if the West
had not been so paranoid about the Soviet Union when it was first established they might well
have developed a less confrontational relationship.

Conclusion
Before concluding, one could add that the exchanges with Pandit still demonstrated
Nehrus unambiguous view that India was a great power and should receive the designation of a
permanent seat on the Security Council. He added, almost as an afterthought to his 30 August
1950 letter to his sister, that there were many factors that meant India was certainly entitled to
a permanent seat in the security council. 36 Indias centrality to Asian and even international
affairs was a constant refrain of Nehrus and he pointed to historical, geographical, and even
moral justifications for this. Nehrus detractors, then and now, tend to agree with his assessment
of Indias greatness, but it was his principled conditions that drew their ire: the concern that India
would not take a place in the UNSC at the cost of China. Therefore it would be interesting to
examine further evidence, if it exists, of discussions on the Indian side about this offer. It would
also be valuable to know the origins of this gambit on the American side, or if there was more

35
Cable to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, New Delhi, 19 July, 1949, in Selected Works of Jawharlal Nehru, vol. 12, (New
Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1991), 389
36
Jawaharlal Nehru to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 30 August, 1950, in Pandit I, Subject File No. 60, Subject: 1949,
1950-51, Letters received by V.L. Pandit as Ambassador to Washington from Jawaharlal Nehru concerning Indias
relations with US, Pakistan and other countries and developments at home, 137, NMML

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communication about this with the Indians. Nevertheless, as confirmation that some discussion
was initiated by the US and was rejected by India, it is very welcome.
Knowledge of this episode adds to our understanding of various aspects of US and Indian
attitudes and foreign policies in the middle of 1950. It is evidence of the US making a major
attempt to draw India closer to it at a crucial stage of the emerging Cold War. This challenges
both the notion of the US taking a balanced subcontinental approach prior to the military
agreement with Pakistan that emerged in late 1953, and also suggests the initial policy of leaving
Cold War management of subcontinent affairs to the old-hand, Great Britain, was being
reconsidered prior to Chinas intervention in the Korean War. 37 This offer should also be seen as
an important event in the USs struggle to bend the UN to the purposes of fighting the Cold War.
The US fear of communist China was so great that Washington considered the risky move of
expelling its spent ally Jiang Jieshi and instead anointing India at the highest table of global
politics, thereby inoculating it against further troublemaking and tilting the Security Council, to
which the Soviets had just returned, irreparably beyond Communist influence.
Nehrus response to the USs offer underlined Indian agency in its difficult relations with
the US. He rejected what might have been perceived as a very generous US proposal to support
Indias national interests on grounds of principle, indicating the difficulty the US would have in
finding a common diplomatic language with India through the 1950s. The exchange revealed
Nehrus continuing respect for the institution of the UN as a critical aspect of his foreign policy,
even following the perceived disadvantage that India felt it had been put to in the UN forum on
the question of Kashmir. More than anything else however, Nehrus letter to Pandit confirmed
the centrality of China to a Nehruvian foreign policy, seen again later in the 1955 exchange in
Moscow, but shown to be firmly in place also in 1950. Nehru was neither a fearful nor blindly
infatuated panda hugger, but pursued a foreign policy constructed around the responsible view
that the PRC was too big for the international system to ignore. 38 Finally this demonstrated
Nehrus conviction that India did deserve a seat on the Security Council, but this was not to be
gained at the cost of firm principle.

37
See Brands, The Cold Peace, 40-41, on the USs initial Commonwealth policy of delegating security issues on
the sub-continent to Great Britain, and the attempt to keep out of Indo-Pak quarrels. For Brands suggestion that this
strategy was only reconsidered following Chinas intervention in the Korean War, see Brands, The Cold Peace, 60.
38
Brahma Chellaney quoted in Tsering Topgyal, Charting the Tibet Issue in the Sino-Indian Border Dispute,
China Report 47 (May 2011): 115-113.

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The ultimate isolation of the PRC from the world, India, and even its closest ally, the
USSR, by the time of Nehrus death in 1964 suggests his policy of engagement and socialization
had failed. Indeed, it has been said that the 1962 war with China killed Nehru. 39 However, to
argue that Nehrus reputation must be assessed in light of this failure it to ignore that he was
powerless to hold significant influence over Beijing, where the leadership was under the sway of
a powerfully radical ideology. The PRCs continued distance from the West and the growing
disputes with India in the late 1950s, followed by the Sino-Indian War in 1962, all seemed to
prefigure the eventual split with Moscow, an event riddled with the esoteric imperatives of the
socialist blocs competitive interpretations of ideology. On the contrary, Nehru must take some
credit for the earlier period when Beijing pursued a broad engagement with the world, despite the
USs attitude. It is quite possible that, without Nehrus accommodating approach to the PRC,
Beijing might have turned its back on a suspicious world far earlier than it did in the end.

39
Ramachandra Guha, The War That Killed Nehru, essay based on the Ingalls Lecture delivered at the Harvard-
Yenching Institute on 29 March 2011.

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Anton Harder is a PhD candidate in the International History Department of the London School
of Economics. His dissertation is on Sino-Indian relations from 1949-1962.

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